How Out Of Touch Is The Copyright Office? It Thinks The Authors Guild Is The 'Leading' Advocate For Writers' Interests

from the not-mine dept

One of the concerns we have about the US Copyright Office is that the staff there often seem entirely out of touch with the world we live in today. Witness, for example, its description of the Authors Guild in a recent announcement about an event they're hosting celebrating the Authors Guild 100th anniversary:

The Copyright Office is pleased to host a Copyright Matters discussion about the history and future of the professional author on December 11 at 3 p.m. in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. The event, occurring on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of The Authors Guild, the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests, will feature Guild president, author Scott Turow, as the keynote speaker. Other speakers include author and past Guild president Robert K. Massie; John Y. Cole of the Library's Center for the Book; and book market analyst Peter Hildick-Smith of the Codex Group. Also present will be guest authors Roy Blount, Jr., Katherine Neville, Mary Pope Osbourne, Nick Taylor, and others. The event is free and open to the public. See www.copyright.gov/copyrightmatters.html.

Except, of course, that's not even close to true. The Authors Guild represents a very tiny sliver of "writers." It currently has about 9,000 members, and famously only realized that self-published authors count as authors... a few months ago. Look, if copyright only covered works that were officially registered with the Copyright Office, perhaps they'd have a point in claiming that the AG represents writers. But that's silly. Due to ridiculous expansion of copyright laws in the US and around the globe (much of which the Copyright Office gleefully supported), everything that people write that has even a tiny modicum of new/creative elements is automatically covered by copyright. That includes the email you just sent and the scribble your toddler just drew on a piece of paper.

Somehow, I don't see the Authors Guild watching out for those "writers" interests.

What about me? I make my living writing -- but I see the Authors Guild as an out of touch organization run by luddites working hard to limit and hinder innovation because they're confused and scared of technology -- mainly how it creates more competition for their special club which doesn't want too many members. This is the same organization that argued that having a legally purchased ebooks read aloud violated their copyrights. The same organization that has sued libraries for scanning books to make them available for people to read in digital form. The same Authors Guild who has argued that the future of books is... brick and mortar stores. The same Authors Guild who (seriously) argued that Shakespeare wouldn't survive in the modern era since no one respects copyright any more (ignoring that there was no copyright in Shakespeare's time, and he did okay).

The Authors Guild isn't representing 99.999% of all "writers." And it certainly doesn't seem to be advocating for writers' interests, considering that it's fought against some of the best new technologies for creating, distributing, promoting and monetizing writers' works today.

Of course, we know what this is really about. The Copyright Office is still living in a time in the past, where it gets to fetishize a small cadre and closed off "club" of top professionals, ignoring that the rules and laws they seek to pass to protect that club against innovation and competition, also have massive negative impacts on the vast majority of content creators who aren't members of that tiny club. The Authors Guild may do wonderful things for a small group of authors who don't want to change with the times, but I don't see how that's a particularly beneficial service. It seems like a mistake. And the Copyright Office celebrates this?

Despite the obvious and ongoing issues with the copyright office, this example is just PR garbage, and does not merit this level of outrage disdain. I suggest saving energy for things that matter, instead of detailed analysis of the language of fluff.

doing it's best to ensure that progress is held off for as long as possible, benefiting only the few that are in charge and reaping a nice salary from this stagnation rather than encouraging progress that will benefit the majority but perhaps relinquish control from the few to the many, is exactly the same exercise that has been undertaken in all things today, the music and movie industries being other prime examples. i understand that accepting change can be very hard, but to continually insist that progress has to be hindered or stopped completely just to keep a few in 'the manner to which they have become accustomed' is no reason to prevent others from accepting new ways of promoting and doing business, especially when customers, you know, the ones that are relied on to keep the businesses solvent, are going to reap that benefit

"What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?

"I make my living writing" -- Really? Where do you DO that? Cause there's no way that HERE provides you with a "living". In San Francisco, one of the nation's most expensive cities. And enables you to fly to DC for several days to lobby against SOPA. While paying off probably a quarter million for an Ivy League college IF you even had to get a loan.

Anyhoo: "the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests"

OKAY, SO NAME THREE MORE with even 9000 members! -- Isn't it then as said? -- So there goes your thesis for this item! -- Now I'm ready for your next RE-write.

Wait a sec, this caught my eye: 'The Authors Guild isn't representing 99.999% of all "writers."' That would be NOT one in a hundred thousand, right? So if there ARE 9000 members, then Mike claims that there must be at least 900,000,000 writers in the US! HA! Shows how well up he is on numbers.

Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?

"OKAY, SO NAME THREE MORE with even 9000 members! -- Isn't it then as said? -- So there goes your thesis for this item! -- Now I'm ready for your next RE-write."

9,000 out of over 500,000 published authors (including reporters, tv and movie screenwriters, and work-for hire writers on books and comic books) is less than 1%, a pitifully-tiny percentage!
OTOH, 90% of theater, movie, and tv performers are registered members of their respective guilds or unions.
Learn to count, boy.

Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?

@ AC: "He in fact he makes money every time you visit so you are actually indirectly funding Mike." -- WRONG. I don't see a single ad here: Noscript and a hosts file. -- And no, I don't buy his T-shirts either!

On the larger front, I've several times mentioned that everyone CAN avoid seeing nearly all advertisements on the net, and I think that'll eventually collapse it in some way. You are clearly too stupid and ignorant to even suspect that you don't HAVE to be tracked and targeted.

It seems to me that you are the ignorant one. But I'll give you a hint: install AdBlock+Ghostery+FlashBlock. And forget about using the hosts file for protection. If you want actual protection, use a firewall, set-up decent rules, and white-list addresses as you go.

Or take the easy route: bury yourself under 30 tons of concrete. That should be deep enough for the trackers to miss you...or is it?

Re: Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?

"WRONG"

No, he's correct actually. Your hilarious idiocy drives page views, meaning that other people click on links to see what raving fiction comes out of your keyboard and mock your insanity, not to mention the nice little link exchange you seem determined to set up with Wikipedia to drive further page views of both sites. While, IIRC, Mike has previously stated that ads don't make up the majority of his revenue (although he might have just been referring to AdSense, and it's obvious to most that this blog doesn't represent 100% of his income), you're probably driving at least some of that traffic with your posts. Well done.

What do you do for a living, by the way? I'm sure that obsessively trolling somebody's blog doesn't pay that much, unless my preferences for facts and adult behaviour have left me unaware of a lucrative career path, of course.

WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

Intrigued, I've moved to a Linux machine with javascript fully enabled and NO hosts file (removed those temporarily, actually), and yet ALL that I see is ONE ad from totally obscure readwriteweb.com, plus the flattr, twitter, and facebook widgets or whatever. -- Is someone going to claim that Mike makes a living from ONE advertisement for some totally obscure something? ... Just doesn't add up, folks. I happily admit that I may be totally wrong on this point (there may be hidden payers wanting tracking and so on), but I sure as heck don't SEE any "living" from re-writing what everyone else had days before, without edge-to-edge ads! This site has FAR fewer ads than many that say frequently they're struggling just to pay the host fee!

So WHAT'S THE SECRET?

I call on Mike to TELL us how he gets a "living" from "writing", because if all one needs do is re-write and let Google run javascript on your site, it's sheer magic! It ought to be illegal to get a "living" so easily! -- And we need to know how to promote a site having mainly re-writes too, that seems even bigger magic! How can re-writes DRAW people to here rather than the sources? -- And IF Mike doesn't tell us that, then we can reasonably conclude, at the very least, that he's keeping the REAL tricks to himself.

C'mon, Mike, you STATED that "I make my living writing". You need at the very least to detail HOW. Isn't that "sharing"? Wouldn't your fanboys be vitally interested in that?

@ PaulT: "Your hilarious idiocy drives page views, meaning that other people click on links to see what raving fiction comes out of your keyboard and mock your insanity, not to mention the nice little link exchange you seem determined to set up with Wikipedia to drive further page views of both sites." -- Oh, I know that! No matter how I strive to be dull, I'm unavoidably entertaining. Just the constant ad hom attacks prove that. And I've jibed a couple times with threats to leave, knowing I'm a DRAW. Thanks for recognition, but de nada, compadre.

And I frequently go away entirely (twice for months), don't even check the site, plus didn't even KNOW about this site before 2009! (It's not all that famous or influential in my estimate! That too makes me wonder where the income is from.) What did/does Mike do then, hmm?

Then YOU END UP AGREEING WITH ME THAT YOU DON'T KNOW how Mike makes a "living" from this site! Brilliant, fully up to Techdirt's usual: divert, ad hom, but actually agree!

Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

@Zakida Paul: "Where is your fucking brain? My money is on 'in your arse'" -- Up to your best, but doesn't answer the question I asked.

Aren't you in the least interested in this magic money machine? Mike says he makes a LIVING from writing! It may not all be here, but he claims it's from somewhere, not me. There isn't enough evidence on this site to even attempt to say he makes a living from it.

But of course the key point to Mike is that the least questions undo him: if you don't accept his premises and "authority", then he's got bupkis. You fanboys know that, and so just go for ad hom whenever a reasonable question arises.

Now, I'm leaving this item 'cause don't have form fill turned on in this FF and it's too much trouble to type in my attractive moniker that PaulT says draws readers, besides that I don't actually hope for any answers, it's rhetorical.

Just above you called "us" stupid and ignorant. If you're going to criticize someone for resorting to such logical fallacies, maybe you shouldn't employ them yourself. Kinda makes you look like a hypocrite.

I dont want to mention the insane man, but he does have some kind of point.

The Authors Guild is primarily for book publishing authors. As you mentioned they only recently saw that the interwebbed datamats are more common than the potential of 3 machines in the world.
Journalism which I would say you to some degree are doing is something else. There are net-media journalist associations that you would fit into.

The piece you comment on is some lame advertisement. It may warrent a story, but it needs more than this imo. How is the history of the Authors Guild? When was it founded?, for whom? and what has their "raison d'etre" been?
There is an argument, that they may have gone awry in recent years while historically the advertisement is true.

Basing a story on a single source takes a solid message. This is to the thin side.

Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

Lots of people make money from writing. I write technical standards and create reports all the time and get paid. Mike writes on a blog, which generates a little revenue from ads, but I would think your pea brain would be able to figure he makes money writing for other venues. The problem is you are too much of a dense contrarian to realize he didn't say he makes all his money from ads on the blog (something that only a narrow minded dolt could take from his point). Additionally, specifically his "blog writing" although free for some to see generates other business ventures for Mike and his company. Most people see an entire business plan here. All you can comprehend is:
1. Writes blog posts
2. ???
3. Profit

Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

1. only 'curious' about how mike -'streisand effect'- masnick makes his money in a gossipy sense of little-to-no-priority in my life...
2. on the other paw, i -along with nearly everyone else 'here'- am simply tired of your juvenile carping with little-to-no salient points to 'argue'...
3. as an absolutist on free speech, i am not a fan of the 'report' button, because it is used to hide mere idiot's rantings, *not* to actually hide really hideous speech (which i *don't* want to have hidden in any event)...
*BUT* while i hardly ever use the 'report' button on *anyone*, i have taken to doing so on most of your posts as a reflex action...
you are simply incorrigible, and NOT in a good way...
troll on, li'l boy blue, you only make more converts to the cause...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof

The Copyright Office is still living in a time in the past, where it gets to fetishize a small cadre and closed off "club" of top professionals, ignoring that the rules and laws they seek to pass to protect that club against innovation and competition, also have massive negative impacts on the vast majority of content creators who aren't members of that tiny club. The Authors Guild may do wonderful things for a small group of authors who don't want to change with the times, but I don't see how that's a particularly beneficial service.

"No matter how I strive to be dull, I'm unavoidably entertaining. Just the constant ad hom attacks prove that."

So, you get your kicks from trolling a blog. That's something I suppose, though that simply confirms my impression that you're an idiot. Intelligent people don't troll for fun, at least not as obsessively as you do. Oh, and since your posts are usually both illogical and/or fact-free, there's not much left other than ad hominems as there's nothing in the arguments you make to attack. We certainly can't address facts, since you neither use them nor answer direct questions about where you get your ideas from.

"And I frequently go away entirely (twice for months), don't even check the site, plus didn't even KNOW about this site before 2009!"

However long you claim to have known, you're definitely a regular commenter. Your lack of a login means I can't directly check when you started posting (unless someone knows how to sort Google results by date?), but saying you've only been posting idiocy for 3 years hardly refutes the nature of your posts. Hell, you haven't even bothered answering questions about what that stupid Wikipedia link is meant to achieve, despite repeated questions.

However, for at least the last few weeks you've been commenting on every single thread, often the first poster, usually without reading the actual article first. That you take a holiday from this stupid pastime doesn't change the fact that you do it a lot. Nor does raising the nature of Mike's career remove questions about what sort of career such a prolific troll could possibly have.

As for where Mike's income comes from, I agree it probably doesn't all come from running a blog, but that's irrelevant to me. To my knowledge Mike is also involved in other projects, including consulting and presentation, although he may consider himself a writer first (and may have writing gigs outside this site, of course). It's only you who assumes that Mike's statement about writing referred only to income from this site, and as ever that half-complete piece of information is where you draw your idiotic assumptions from.

Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

Mike's living come from consulting. Writing for, and running Techdirt is how he places himself in front of the eyes of potential clients. A lot of consultants do this or other similar things. So yes, his writing here indirectly affects his income.

Failing again?

Just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't have influence.

Do you know about the Antarctic treaty?

If not, lemme explain...

It basically sets up Antarctica as a scientific preserve, which prevents any civilization from settling in down there. Yeah, that's right, it's not that it's freezing cold down there (humans live in Siberia, Northern Canada, Greenland and Northern Norway and Sweden after all), but it's because there's laws against it.

Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

"3. as an absolutist on free speech, i am not a fan of the 'report' button, because it is used to hide mere idiot's rantings, *not* to actually hide really hideous speech (which i *don't* want to have hidden in any event)..."

I've seen spam and more objectionable posts hidden quickly with that button, and I also disagree with it being used indiscriminately. But, the button's stated purpose involves reporting troll comments, and I can't recall having unhidden a reported post (as I do often) and seeing a post that didn't fit that or another stated criteria.

Usually it's the same 3 idiots posting comments of no value, and since the posts are only hidden (that is, not removed nor the user banned), I don't see the problem with it. Given that it's a mere click to unhide a comment, and there's a very clear notice that a comment has been hidden, I barely even consider it censorship, let alone a real problem.

Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

"Most people see an entire business plan here. All you can comprehend is..."

I'm not sure if he's specifically said it himself, but the trolls he tends to be associated with do tend to parse "use low value infinite goods to leverage sales of more valuable scarce goods" as "sell t shirts", and "I want good content at a reasonable price" as "I want to steal". I assume he's using the same low level of thought here.

Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?

"The event, occurring on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of The Authors Guild, the nation's leading advocate for writers' interests...."

Except, of course, that's not even close to true. The Authors Guild represents a very tiny sliver of "writers." It currently has about 9,000 members, and famously only realized that self-published authors count as authors... a few months ago.

It says "leading advocate for writers". You're the one claiming that their relative size somehow disqualifies them as the leading advocate. Is there another author's group who advocates for writers interests that you think is more deserving of that title than the Author's Guild?

I'd argue that the AFL-CIO is the leading advocate for workers interests. Even though the percentage of the workforce that are union members is a tiny fraction of the total workforce. The AFL is engaged on issues important to all workers, union and non-union alike. Does the fact that their membership is a small percentage diminish the benefit to other workers?

That too makes me wonder where the income is from.) What did/does Mike do then, hmm?

You're an idiot. Techdirt is a living example of how to leverage "free" (this blog) to sell actual scarcities which are Mike's time and consultation services (Floor64). Mike has always maintained that Techdirt's ad revenue barely covers operating and bandwidth costs. Techdirt is basically a loss leader for Floor64.

Wait, if you didn't know of the site before 2009, why the hell are you spending your time arguing about something you claim Masnick hasn't solved since five years ago?

Oh, wait, that's right. It's because you're a troll, not someone who promotes interesting discussion. This is the best that pro-copyright shills have to offer? Really? But on the other hand pro-copyright shills have never been great with numbers or math.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHERE are these advertisements? WHERE does Mike's "living" come from?

1. agree that it is NOT egregious 'censorship' to have the 'report' button, *but* it is a type of 'soft' censorship...
(AGAIN, techdirt deserves major props for the amount of free speech they DO allow; i do NOT hold this tiny bit of (barely/kinda/sorta) censorship against them...)

2. as far as that goes, i like the slashdot method of commenting and 'reporting' that the readers assign cumulative numeric values to the posts, and a person can surf at whatever 'number' they choose... personally, i almost always show 'all' posts, no matter how downgraded by the community...

3. another related issue, is that of threads gone by: you get a good debate/dialog going, and then it scrolls off the page before the day is out... it seems like there should be *some* easy method to keep active threads available and continuing... (even if them become divorced from the original article)

4. a pie-in-the-sky idea i'd like to see implemented, is that of having designated posters/'debaters' square off against each other on the issues... there are far too many active and interesting threads that scroll off the radar screen (to mix metaphors, after all, what's a meta for?), and that also get derailed by sideshows (perhaps purposefully by bots, but that is another thread)...
maybe by a vote of the posters as to who goes head-to-head against whom ?
like i say, just a barebones wish of an idea...

Wrongo.

Actually, no. If the Authors' Guild wasn't there, Google would have gotten away with paying the rank and file absolutely zero. The latest proposed settlement promised paychecks to a large collection of writers and the vast majority of the winners were not members nor did they have anything to do with the suit. The Authors' Guild was very much a defender of the little guy-- unlike Google who just saw it as an opportunity to find more content to sell more ads. Like we need more ads.

Re: Re: "What about me?" -- It's ALL about you, isn't it, Mike?

If what out_of_the_asscrack writes passes off as Pulitzer literature for you it's no wonder they need to have an Author's Guild. Someone's gotta corral all the idiots like darryl and hurricane head up his ass.

Re: Re:

He doesn't represent writers. He represents Big Search, Big Hardware and Big Piracy in their relentless quest to make sure they never, ever share any of their revenue with the people who do the work in the first place.

Re: Re: Re:

"He doesn't represent writers. He represents Big Search, Big Hardware and Big Piracy in their relentless quest to make sure they never, ever share any of their revenue with the people who do the work in the first place."

Like Big Media?
(Did you know that, according to studio acounting, AVATAR still hasn't made a profit?)

Re:

"I'd argue that the AFL-CIO is the leading advocate for workers interests. Even though the percentage of the workforce that are union members is a tiny fraction of the total workforce. The AFL is engaged on issues important to all workers, union and non-union alike. Does the fact that their membership is a small percentage diminish the benefit to other workers?"

Which is exactly why Republicans in Michigan and other states are trying to destroy the AFL-CIO.